WARNING: The following contains spoilers for South Park Season 25, Episode 5, "Help, My Teenager Hates Me!" now available on Comedy Central.
Stan Marsh has had to deal with a lot in South Park Season 25. There was the tail end of a mismanaged pandemic. His dad Randy got caught up in a cultural appropriation scheme with Tegridy Farms andthe weed-growing company embarked on a race war with its rival. Plus the show worked in the threat of actual war with Russia. Throw in Stan's unconscious bias drawing the ire of Tolkien, and it's safe to say that he needed a break.
This respite occurred when Stan and the other boys headed to the Airsoft park for some friendly-fire fun. However, Stan's life changed drastically when he had to care for a teenage boy afterwards. Thankfully, the show resurrected Stan's dog Sparky to heal the teen's broken soul after he got depressed over his sexuality.
With Kyle and Cartman basically adopting their whiny teens and taking them to the mall to curb their bratty ways, South Park held up a mirror that reflected to the boys how spoiled they could be too. Stan's teen was a tad more intrusive -- phoning in the middle of the night to nag him. However, the teen also expressed anger over one particular incident in which Stan used a slur at the Airsoft park. He didn't like that Stan called the rule where you couldn't shoot someone less then ten feet away as "gay," and accused him of being homophobic.
Stan then brought up Sparky, who came out as gay during Season 1. In the 1997 episode "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride," Sparky went around humping other male dogs, garnering criticism from the snowy town. He taught Stan about equality and acceptance, with George Clooney voicing the pooch to mix comedy with the serious tone of the message. The character would be seen sporadically over the next few years, but didn't have a major role in any other South Park episode until now, when Stan told the emo teen he couldn't be homophobic because he educated the town on homosexuality.
He was one of the first kids to vouch for LGBTQ+ people after the Sparky incident, pointing out how gay people deserved love and compassion, especially if they felt no one would want them coming out the closet. Stan reassured the teen that he didn't mean to offend anyone, but he was sorry if he had. The apology was Stan's way of hoping the boy didn't suppress his identity and also hoping that he'd live on with pride and dignity.
What's worth noting is Stan's claim that he "had a gay dog," implying that Sparky died. He was last seen with the Marsh family watching news in Season 20's "The End of Serialization as We Know It," but his current fate and whereabouts are unknown. Fans are hoping he'll return soon, because outside of LGBT arcs, Sparky was involved in key stories even if his specific part in them wasn't huge. One of the weirdest examples was when his fur was shaved to stick to Butters' body after Cartman's crew tried to make people think Butters was a dog and that they accidentally flung a ninja star into his eye.
While Season 25's Sparky just got an honorable mention and didn't even appear on-screen, he played an important spiritual role in the latest episode and helped Stan save a life. Not only that, but maybe this act of helping also gave Stan a silver lining after all the terrible things that the season has put him through. Perhaps Sparky's story is the moment that will turn Stan's whole season around.
To see how Sparky helps Stan save his teen, watch South Park Season 25 every Wednesday at 8 PM ET/PT on Comedy Central.